{"id":223,"date":"2015-01-11T11:12:00","date_gmt":"2015-01-11T17:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pkeating.com\/?p=223"},"modified":"2015-04-06T14:51:16","modified_gmt":"2015-04-06T20:51:16","slug":"avoiding-traps-for-the-unwary-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pkeating.com\/?p=223","title":{"rendered":"Avoiding Traps for the Unwary (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This post continues the discussion from my last <a title=\"Avoiding Traps for the Unwary (Part One)\" href=\"http:\/\/pkeating.com\/?p=220\" target=\"_blank\">post<\/a> regarding common mistakes that can cause a loss of trade secrets.\u00a0 To qualify as a trade secret, information must be the subject of reasonable precautions to maintain secrecy.\u00a0 This rule applies beyond the procedures that the trade secret owner follows outside of the courthouse.\u00a0 Parties to lawsuits also need to be careful not to waive their trade secrets by publishing the trade secrets in open court.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 76a specifies the procedures for sealing court records.\u00a0 It is understandable that litigants might lose sight of those procedures in the rush of event surrounding an application for an injunction to prevent a competitor from using stolen trade secrets or during the heat of battle at trial.\u00a0 This can lead to trader secret owners disclosing their trade secrets in open court (for example, by admitting exhibits into evidence at a trial open to the public; allowing witnesses to testify about trade secrets in open court; or attaching exhibits to court filings).\u00a0 Later, when they file a motion seeking to retroactively seal the court\u2019s file, the motion may be denied because the business information no longer qualifies as a trade secret.\u00a0 This is because the information was made public through the disclosure in the court proceedings.<\/p>\n<p>An example of a Texas case where a court denied a motion to seal business records under these circumstances is <a title=\"Burlington Northern opinion\" href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar_case?q=burlington+northern+railroad+southwester+electric+texarkana&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=4,44&amp;case=5664422800656856752&amp;scilh=0\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Burlington Northern RR Co. v. Southwestern Electric Power Co.<\/em><\/a>, 905 S.W.2d 683, 685 (Tex. App.\u2014Texarkana 1995, writ denied).\u00a0 In that case, Burlington Northern sought to seal business records that the trial court found had previously been published to those attending the trial (which included non-parties watching the trial), in a court filing in the case, and in filings in connection with other litigation.\u00a0 The Court of Appeals of Texarkana affirmed the trial court\u2019s ruling denying the motion to seal the records.<\/p>\n<p>So, be careful.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photograph by Meredith Atwater pursuant to the licence located at: https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/legalcode<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"twttr_buttons\"><div class=\"twttr_followme\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/@_PatrickKeating\" class=\"twitter-follow-button\" data-show-count=\"false\" data-size=\"default\"  data-show-screen-name=\"false\"  target=\"_blank\">Follow me<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post continues the discussion from my last post regarding common mistakes that can cause a loss of trade secrets.\u00a0 To qualify as a trade secret, information must be the subject of reasonable precautions to maintain secrecy.\u00a0 This rule applies beyond the procedures that the trade secret owner follows outside of the courthouse.\u00a0 Parties to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":219,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[17,13],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/pkeating.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Mitsakes-Meredith-Atwater-CCA.jpg?fit=240%2C135&ssl=1","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p52Eew-3B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pkeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pkeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pkeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pkeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pkeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pkeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224,"href":"https:\/\/pkeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions\/224"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pkeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pkeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pkeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pkeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}